I love cooking but I hate doing dishes. So a recipe that can be done in one pan is always appealing. This is the recipe I shared at the farmer's market on Saturday and it was a big hit. It is inspired by my grandmother's home cooking. Comfort food at it's finest and it freezes well for leftovers to boot!

White Wine Chicken and Potato SkilletMakes 4 servings

Ingredients

2 tbsp canola oil

½ white onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

6 skinless boneless chicken thighs, chopped into bite sized pieces

½ cup chicken stock, low sodium

½ cup dry white wine

2 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped

1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped

2 cups chopped French green beans

3 cups mini potatoes, quartered

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

2 tbsp fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat canola oil on medium high heat in a large skillet pan

Add in onions and garlic. Saute until golden brown (about 4 minutes).

Add in chicken and cook until chicken is golden brown on all sides.

Add in just a splash of white wine to deglaze the bottom of the pan. Once done add in the remaining white wine, chicken stock, lemon juice and Dijon mustard. Stir well.

Add in oregano, rosemary, beans and potatoes. Stir and then cover.

Reduce heat to low medium and let simmer for about 10 minutes until potatoes begin to soften. Stir occasionally to prevent bottom of pan from burning. Add a little extra stock and wine as needed.

Cook for an additional 5 minutes if potatoes are not easily pierced with a fork.

Uncover and add in the tomatoes. Stir well and cook for another minute uncovered.

With ever increasing life expectancies living a healthy and high quality life becomes ever more important. We are also learning more everyday that what we choose to eat plays a huge role in this. Food companies also recognize this and try their hardest to make their food seem as nutritious as possible.

But are they?

Here are a couple of foods you may want to take a second look at before assuming they are healthy:

Granola BarsGranola bars are traditionally a combination of grains, nuts and seeds mixed with some sort of sweetener (like honey or syrup). While they can be a tasty snack, many of the bars on the market are just like glorified candy bars. They provide very little in the way of nutrients, fibre or protein but often come with quite a large amount of sugar. It's not always obvious either like a chocolate coating or some sort of drizzle on top. This minimal protein, low fibre and high sugar combination is perfect for preventing you from feeling full.

If you really need to have granola bars for the convenience factor here is a good rule of thumb: Look for one that has at least 4 grams of fiber per serving and no more than 8 grams of sugar per serving. This will be a better choice. An even better option might be trying a new snack option: maybe some low fat cheese and a piece of fruit or just some dried fruit and nuts. These foods will fill you up and are packed with lots of essential nutrients for a healthy day.

100 Calorie Snack PacksThis is just well marketed portion control. These foods are not necessarily healthy for you, but are just tiny portions of those tasty processed snacks we all know and love. If you need a treat there is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes we need food for more than nutrition reasons. However, from a cost perspective and environmental impact perspective you would be better off buying the original bag of the product and just pre-portioning it at home.

Veggie ChipsThese are still chips. They are not significantly higher in nutrients. They are still often deep-fried. Some are baked, but then these are just about as good as baked potato chips. There are lots of great ways to make vegetable chips at home that would be healthier. Try one of mine: Kale Chips or Beet Chips

100% fruit juice blendsJuice is a wonderful sweet beverage that can come in so many flavors. It is however very concentrated in sugars. Most 100% all natural fruit juices although all natural can have as much as 5 packets worth of sugar in one 250ml cup. One cup of orange juice is the same as drinking the juice from about 3 oranges. While it does have lots of nutrients in it the key ingredient of fiber that was apart of the fruit has been taken away. Fiber helps to slow down natural sugars so the sugar from the juice will head straight for your blood steam and quite quickly too. So try to limit the amount of juice you have each day. The daily recommendation is about 1/2 a cup.

As I have tried to say for most of these foods, you could include any one of them as part of a healthy diet. Just be aware they might not be a healthy as you think. Moderation is key though so enjoy!

Have you ever really stopped to think about how hungry or full you feel during the day? Not just if you are hungry or full but how intensely you are feeling these sensations. You might think such things are not important but being in tune with your hunger level can be key to helping you feel in control of your eating and more importantly, actually help you enjoy it.

There is a hunger scale I like to use adapted from You Count, Calories Don’t by Ominchanski, L. (1992). Many of the weight management programs and group counseling sessions I do involve using this scale in one form or another. Have a look below:

The hunger scale is represented on 10 points. As you move from the left to the right you go from extremely hungry all the way to extremely full. Throughout the day we all slide up and down this scale. Where we are on the scale will effect how much we eat, how quickly we eat and how much we enjoy eating.

For example when you are beginning to feel hungry or pretty hungry eating food will taste quite enjoyable but as you eat more and move closer to a 6 or a 7, you will find the food becomes less interesting and eventually you stop eating. As another example, if you are at the extreme end of the scale like a 1 or a 2 the food might taste really good but you might feel really anxious about eating and eat very quickly as if you might not get to eat again. This can cause you to eat too quickly and end up at the other end of the scale because you didn't give your body the chance to tell you it had enough.

Using a scale like this can help you become more in tune with what your body needs. As children we are very in tune with our eating needs. I'm sure we have all seen the child that one minute will eat you out of house and home and the next will only have a few bites before taking off to do something more interesting. That is because the child is very aware of their hunger and only eats as much as needed when they are hungry. It is a very normal and healthy way to eat. Sometimes our body needs more and sometimes it needs less. This usually depends on the last thing we ate, when we ate it and how active we have been recently.

As we get older we tend to ignore our hunger cues. Sometimes it is because of rules we were taught as we grew up like having to clean our plate. Other times it is because we have very busy or distracting lives that don't allow us to eat when needed. Sometimes we impose it on ourselves like following a new diet that limits what and when we are allowed to eat through the day, even if our body might be telling us something else. All of this can eventually lead to us being out of synch with ourselves.

The good new is that we can start to get back into tune with our bodies pretty easily. The first step is becoming more aware. When you start to feel hungry try rating it on the scale above. Ask yourself questions like "Am I really hungry? How hungry do I feel? What kind of sensations am I having right now?" Starting to recognize those early cues of hunger again like a rumble in your stomach or feeling a little light headed is key. Next, as you are eating or once you are finished eating assess again where you are on the scale. Did you eat only until you were no longer hungry? Did you eat until full or when you started to feel uncomfortable? There is no right or wrong answer to this. Generally we do want to try to stay between a 3 and 6 most of the time in order to slow ourselves down and make healthier choices but there will be times you go higher or lower on the scale.

For example, you might go lower on the scale after a big hike or playing hockey. You also might go higher on the scale after a holiday celebration where the food tasted really good. There is nothing wrong with either of these situations. What is important is getting in touch with ourselves again so we can eat at times that are appropriate for us and not built on just rules we have put in place. Using tools like the scale above can be the first step in becoming more comfortable with food rather than looking at it as an uphill battle.

Author

Kate ParkRD, CDE, PTS, MAN, BAScKate is a Registered Dietitian and self proclaimed foodie who studied her Master of Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. Currently she practices at a Family Health Team in Southern Ontario. Her greatest passion in life is food, so she spends her spare time teaching cooking classes and nutrition courses all over Ontario.